Drawing is the entry point for this book’s examination of a crucial moment in the recent history of
exhibitions. It is a vital piece of research, at a time when the medium of drawing has never been so
omnipresent, indeed has become one of the most often-displayed mediums in contemporary art
spaces. At the same time, drawing surprisingly borrows the format of history painting, the aesthetics
of photography and its mechanisms from those of large installations.Thus at a time when the age-
old distinction between drawing and other forms of art is tending to disappear or be forgotten, and
drawing is displayed and viewed on an equal footing with other artworks, a number of questions
need to be addressed. When exactly did the status of drawing change in the eyes of exhibition
curators and why did it do so? Since when has a drawing been considered as a contemporary art
object on a par with others? And how did the medium become the vector of a generalized curatorial
proposition in Europe and the United States?

Published by Roven Éditions and Musée Jenisch Vevey

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Foreword

Julie Enckell
Julliard

Introduction

Thierry Davila

The Drawings
Exhibition of Documenta 3 (1964)

Claiming
Autonomy, Writing History

Hugo Daniel

Opting for
drawings

A short history
of the visible presence of drawing in Switzerland at the time when the figure
of the exhibition curator arrived on the scene

Julie Enckell
Julliard

Exhibitions [of
Drawings] in Britain, 1964–80

Lucy Steeds

Drawing Between
Quotes

A History of Group Exhibitions of Contemporary
Drawings in New York in the 1970s

Laurence
Schmidlin

Working
Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to be Viewed
as Art

Mel Bochner

‘Drawings for
three-dimensional projects’: The redefinition of
drawing in the Netherlands between 1960 and 1980